12311. (a) The names of all corporations formed under this part
shall include "cooperative." No corporation shall be formed under
this part unless there is affixed or prefixed to its name some word
or abbreviation which will indicate that it is a corporation, as
distinguished from a natural person, a firm, or an unincorporated
association.
(b) No person shall adopt or use the word "cooperative" or any
abbreviation or derivation thereof, or any word similar thereto, as
part of the name or designation under which it does business in this
state, unless incorporated as provided in this part or unless
incorporated as a nonprofit cooperative association under Chapter 1
(commencing with Section 54001) of Division 20 of the Food and
Agricultural Code, as a stock cooperative, as defined in Section
11003.2 of the Business and Professions Code, as a limited-equity
housing cooperative, as defined in Section 817 of the Civil Code, as
a credit union or organization owned for the mutual benefit of credit
unions, or under some other law of this state enabling it to do so.
However, the foregoing prohibition shall be inapplicable to any
credit union or organization owned for the mutual benefit of credit
unions, any housing cooperative, the financing of which is insured,
guaranteed, or provided, in whole or in part, by a public or
statutorily chartered entity pursuant to a program created for
housing cooperatives, a nonprofit corporation, a majority of whose
membership is composed of cooperative corporations, or an academic
institution that serves cooperative corporations.
(c) A domestic or foreign corporation or association which did
business in this state under a name or designation including the word
"cooperative" prior to September 19, 1939, and which conducts
business on a cooperative basis substantially as set forth in this
part, may continue to do business under that name or designation.
(d) Any person, firm, individual, partnership, trust, domestic
corporation, foreign corporation, or association which did business
in this state under a name or designation including the word
"cooperative" prior to September 19, 1939, but which does not conduct
business on a cooperative basis as contemplated by Section 12201 of
this part, may continue to do business under that name or designation
if the words "not organized under the law relating to cooperative
corporations" are always placed immediately after the name or
designation wherever it is used.
(e) Any foreign corporation, organized under and complying with
the cooperative law of the state or other jurisdiction of its
creation, may use the term "cooperative" in this state if it has
complied with the laws of this state applicable to foreign
corporations, insofar as those laws are applicable to it, and if it
is doing business on a cooperative basis as contemplated by Section
12201.